Dubai: Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group plans to open its first property in the UAE in Dubai, according to a top group executive.
The luxury resort, which will have 200 rooms and suites, will be located on Jumeirah Beach Road, Jumeriah 3. It will also include 12 villas built over water, accessible by a bridge. Each villa will have a pool.
The resort, called Mandarin Oriental, Dubai, is owned by Dubai Real Estate Corporation and is being built by Wasl Hospitality. Its construction commenced six months ago, and it is scheduled to open by the second or third quarter of 2017, according to Christoph Mares, the group’s executive vice-president and operations director for Europe, the Middle East, Africa and India.
Jumeirah Beach Road will also see the opening of the luxury Four Seasons Resort Dubai in October.
Mares does not think that the luxury segment of the market is saturated, yet. “We believe there is more room for luxury hotels,” he told Gulf News in an interview on Tuesday.
Mandarin Oriental, a Hong Kong-based luxury hotel investment and management group, has a global portfolio of 27 hotels across the Americas, Europe and Asia, and 18 projects in the pipeline. “These are coming in gradual steps — three, maximum four in one year,” Mares said.
Asked when the group is looking to launch a property on Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island, something it had earlier planned by 2014, Mares said: “The management contract with the developer, Tourism Development and Investment Company (TDIC), is under negotiation.”
He did not comment on when construction of the hotel is likely to start, and said that it is “too soon to say” when it is expected to open.
The group’s other hotel that was planned for a 2014 opening, in Doha’s Musheireb area, is scheduled to open its doors in the first or second quarter of 2016, he said.
On why the opening of the Doha hotel has been pushed back, he said: “Construction is taking longer than expected. The size of the project is what it’s about.”
Elsewhere in the region, Mandarin Oriental expects to open a property in Marrakech, Morocco in the second quarter of 2015. The group is also looking at opportunities in Riyadh and Kuwait.
“Our target is to have 10,000 to 11,000 hotel rooms under management globally by 2018. Now we are close to 10,000 rooms,” Mares said.
Next year, the group also expects to open hotels in Milan (second quarter) and Beijing (late 2015).
This year, the group saw the opening of hotels in Bodrum, Turkey (July) and Taipei (June).
In the coming years, Mandarin Oriental aims to grow in new and existing markets, including China, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam, South Korea, southern Europe, and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries.
